"Here's a warning, Happy Birthday."

You know what's even better than getting pulled over?

Getting pulled over while all your family is there to witness it.

Both your parents and all of your siblings.

On your birthday.

Yeah.

That was fun.

Apparently going 35 in a 25 is illegal.

I made it all the way to the driveway when he pulled me over.

"So it's your birthday huh?"
"Yep. And my niece's baptism. Hence all the cars."
"Well, here's a warning. Happy birthday."

He thought I wasn't familiar with the area and didn't realize it was 25 and not 35.

I didn't mention I lived there for four years.

But I SWEAR that road is 35.

Or at least it used to be when I lived there.

Whatever.

It was a warning.

I can live with that.

Might have it framed.

I never get warnings.

It's not like I speed a lot.

Or get pulled over a lot.

Just lately.

Should work on that.

So birthdays.

Yeah.

My niece got baptized, that was cool. Hung out with the family most of the afternoon. Helped Favorite Sister-In-Law with some homework. Kind of my niche apparently, technology-based assignments.

Last time I helped her make a really kickass powerpoint.

This time it's something about tracks and links and all that.

Seemed pretty cool.

After that I jammed with Bubby at their house since Squirt had a tournament in Omaha and both parentals went to watch.

We ordered pizza, ate ice-cream cake and watched movies.

He's so funny.

Bubby: "It's your birthday, so I'm paying for the pizza."
Me: "No you're not. You're twelve. I'm putting it on my card."
Bubby: "I'm gonna put money in your wallet."
Me: "You don't know where my wallet is."
Bubby: "I'm gonna hide money in your car."
Me: "Yeah, I'll find it 2 months later and be like, twelve bucks, what?"

Goof.

My family rocks.

Got a vacuum.

And a blender.

And some dishes, cookware, and clothes.

Stoked.

And really curious about the blender.

I broke my last one.

Wasn't technically my fault.

Stupid dishwasher.

That thing hates me.

As do most of my appliances.

Or at least that's my excuse for not using them.

But the dishwasher needs a name.

Like, in college, we had this really annoying heater/air conditioner thing that everyone called "The whale" or Moby or whatever, cause it was like super loud and obnoxious and turned on and off at odd hours.

I think I called it Roberta.

Don't ask.

Anyway, it was obnoxious, and somehow having names for things that are obnoxious makes life easier.

Cause if they do something wrong you have something to yell and blame it on.

Like, "Shut up Roberta, I'm trying to sleep!"

or

"Damnit, Thomas, why don't you work?" which I yell quite frequently at my navigational system.

As in Cindy Thomas.

Not as in Tom-Tom.

And yes that's a Women's Murder Club reference.

Just had to clear that up.

Not that I want to yell at Cindy Thomas.

She rocks.

And she can find out secrets and scandals and all that, she's a good reporter.

So I called my nav system Thomas cause she can get me out of jams.

Though now, since I haven't updated her in forever, she gets me into more jams than she gets me out of.

Apparently I had to clear that up as well.

Moving on.

Dishwasher.

I think I'm gonna call it...

Lucille?

Hmmm....

Yeah.

Lucille.

Lucille the dishwashing machine.

Works.

No, I have no explanation for that name either.

Lucille is evil and she hates me.

Or maybe I'm just using too much soap.

More to come on that later.

You know what?

I love teachers.

I do.

About 80% of my friends and family are, or were at some point, teachers.

Both of my parents were teachers.

But the thing about teachers? Is that they know exactly what to say.

All the time.

That can make them very obnoxious patrons.

Like, if they have fines over the limit and they can't check out.

Today I got hit with, "So, as a taxpaying citizen, you're saying that I'm not allowed to check out books."

Snap.

It's not me saying it personally, it's the system that won't let you check out.

But they don't get that it's the system, they think it's me.

Um.

Supervisor?

Can I just say how glad I am, in those instances, that I am physically the lowest on the totem pole of desk workers.

Well, I guess second-lowest now.

But there are so many people above me that I can pass that off to, it's fantastic!

Not so fantastic for them, but still.

Great for me!

And they're supervisors for a reason, they can handle it.

I cannot.

Apparently.

Which sucks, as there's usually one of those instances once a week.

I'm a magnet, I swear.

But this one wasn't just me, there were multiple staff members around who thought the instance was a little over the top.

Whatever, it's done.

Like the warning for speeding.

It happens, you keep your head down and move on.

This is especially helpful in circumstances when you have stalkers.

Keep your head down and just keep moving.

Did I mention that today was a day?

I have this old lady stalker woman person chick that follows me around and talks to me about her personal life and it's really awkward, so usually when I see her my coworkers cover while I go and roam until she goes away.

She was in today, but got distracted in youth services.

It's okay, The New Girl shielded me with her sweater.

She too has people who ask random library questions in order to just speak with her.

I think we're too nice.

Maybe that's it.

I gotta be meaner.

Like stone-cold mean face or something.

Wordie says I have the glare down.

Like down pat. (is it down pact or down pat?)

I just don't use it.

Often.

Just on old boyfriends.

I know I'm rambling.

I haven't posted in two days.

Or checked Facebook.

People think I went underground or something.

Song of the day before I think of something else to ramble about.

Sometimes I like being ironic.

"Zip-a-dee-doo-dah" Song of the South

this song is the only thing satisfactual about that movie.

Did you know that the star - James Baskett - wasn't even able to attend the premiere because Atlanta - where Disney introduced it himself - was still segregated?

Ridiculous.

Sorry, I'll stop with all the rambling.

You know what is satisfactual?

The Civil Wars and their iTunes live album.

Had to download it, it's fantastic.

Totally jammed in the backroom to it today.

The backroom is great for escapes, by the way.

Alright, Carter and I are out before I can think up more tangents.

Wonderful feeling, Wonderful day.

Are they laughing at or with me?

Stop Class #2?

Much more entertaining than the first time around.

Think it had everything to do with the teacher.

First time I went - granted it was in a smaller town and at a library, ironic - it was taught by a cop.

Today we had a sub.

I knew it would be interesting when she was showing clips from Wipeout on the projector before class started.

Every time we took a break she'd show more AFV or just random clips that she had collections of, mostly people doing stupid stuff.

The majority of them had something to do with a vehicle. So it was almost appropriately class related.

We'll call it class adjacent.

It was perfection.

Anyway, she understood that we didn't all want to be there so she flew over the material pretty quickly, not repeating things that we already knew. Answered a lot of dumb questions. I think we all passed.

Though the dude next to me was annoying the crap out of me and I wish he failed.

Does that make me a bad person?

He was playing games on his cellphone the whole class.

Then it died and he wanted to borrow my charger.

Which I didn't have. Even if I did I wasn't going to hand it over to him in the middle of stop class.

Why is it that I always end up at the table with the people who talk?

You know, they think they're whispering but they're clearly not cause she keeps looking back at them every 30 seconds.

I think that just goes with sitting in the back corner.

Did that through the majority of college, unless it was a small enough class for all of us to be forced to the front.

Gonna have to switch it up a little I guess.

I did for the Library Goddess, but then she kept using me as an example. Made me sound brilliant, I should thank her for that.

Though I sat in the back for her next class and she still did it.

So maybe it's just me.

Paying me back for the coffee.

Makes me sound like a genius librarian. In front of other library people.

Guess we're even.

But I'll still bring her coffee.

Where was I?

Oh right, Stop Class.

Didn't totally suck.

And I will forevermore be wearing my seatbelt.

It wasn't like a "click it or ticket" message thrown our way, it was more of a "click it or die" kind of message. All these videos and pictures and horrible stories. Scared into submission. Gross.

Plus, tires make me paranoid now. Did you know if they're older than 4 years that's dangerous? Not as in I've used them for four years, as in they've existed for four years. Including the years they've sat in the shop. They showed us the numbering system, I'm checking mine next time I go to the car.


Quotes of the Day:

-"Nebraska has two seasons: football season and road construction."

-"Grammatically that's a horrible sentence."

-"You know that 'oh crap' moment, right when you realize you're about to crash?"

-"We're all zombie drivers."

-"Have you ever seen an adult text? 'How do I backspace?!'"

-"He was speeding too casually."

-"You wouldn't think a minivan would go offroad."

-"It doesn't matter who I'm running over, as long as the coffee doesn't hit the interior!"

-"Beard or below is bad." does everyone know about this whole Abe Lincoln tire check thing? Was that a driver's ed thing? I'm a farm kid. We don't do driver's ed. We drive giant farm equipment far too early in life to worry about something like that.

-"You are completely allowed by law to spend 80 bucks on duct tape and make a window."

-"If your passengers are laughing kick them out. They'll stop laughing."

-"Number One: Know your material or you suck. Number Two: Know the answers or it's back to number one, you suck."

-"So it's like diet beer? Ew!"

-"Is velveeta really cheese?"

-"Fine, let THEM eat the re-tread!"

-"Take a wrong turn and you end up in Iowa!"


-"Point number three: Never screw with the Queen of England."

Though the HIGHLIGHT of the ENTIRE DAY!! was totally my bad. I mean, nobody else really noticed. Except the annoying guy to my right and the annoying teen to his right.

Have you seen this commercial? Bridgestone tires?



If you haven't, you should watch it.

NOW.

I did a spit take. Literally. I was swallowing my coffee and the second that first squirrel screamed it came out of my mouth and back into the thermos. Laughing and swallowing and coughing at the same time is just awkward. Luckily the majority of my classmates were out of the room on break.

But dude.

I'd seen it before too, I just didn't remember it.

Classic spit take.

Not one of my shining moments.

But it just got worse cause them I kept thinking about the video and laughing when I really shouldn't have been laughing cause she's talking about death and destruction.

A lot of the stuff just reminded me of this episode of NCIS when Abby and Tony are talking about driving classes and Abby is commenting on the videos. "Drink, Drive, Die" was the name of one she wanted on DVD.

And it's like the time that I couldn't stop laughing at this quote from Just Shoot Me and it made working in the lab, where there are just two of us, really awkward.

But that's when you take a lap.

And roam the floor.

Can't stop laughing at something Nina Van Horn said like 9 years ago?

Perfect time to go check the biographies to make sure no one's dealing drugs, sleeping, peeing on the material or doing anything else back there.

The joys of a public library.

Another joy of a public library?

We're open on Sundays.

Which means I will be there.

So I should sleep.

"At Or With Me" Jack Johnson

It's okay Jack. I hate him too. Beat him up. Gotta say, 2:59, best part ever. I cheered. Cannot stand that guy.

Is it bad to cheer for something like that hours after you leave a stop class?

and to all a goodnight.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November: Take Three

Oh....my....god.

Just.

There are no other words.

To describe what happened today at work.

Okay, so in college my friend Schwartz (even though she is no longer schwartz but i will call her that until we die) and I formed this group on Facebook called "Awkward Moments at Concordia" and we filled it with stories about awkward moments that happened at Concordia, like your car alarm going off repeatedly in the parking lot and how it wouldn't even stop going off as you were driving down the road, or getting a rose on the first date from this guy you took a math class with, or having people assume you're engaged because you shared a hymnal with someone at chapel, and so on and so forth.

Today I'd like to add a new category to this blog entitled: Awkward Moments at the Library.

Today's awkward moment topped even the "likes ass or jazz" conversation mentioned here: My Life in Closed Captions: This Magnet Moment...

Topped it by far.

Topped the whole freaking list.

Soared over the whole freaking top of the list.

That I could spell out to you in detail, or you could just read the blog, it's full of awkward recollections of awkward moments.

Anyway, so yeah. Okay, how do I put this in words?

I'm still a little in shock.

Basically,

Um,

So I was helping this older lady in the lab download some files onto her flashdrive. And she wanted to make sure that they had loaded. So we unplugged it and plugged it back in and she clicked on one that was a video. And, this is when we learned, that if you open a new video in window's media player, the former video that was playing on it, remains there.

And um, I should probably mention that this was an unfiltered computer. And leave the rest up to your imagination.

Just. Oh my god. Imagine the worst video that could pop up on the screen when you're showing someone who could be your grandmother how to make sure her files downloaded.

Oh my god.

Just oh my god.

Um, yeah, "closing out of that window."

She was horrified.

As was I.

Oh my god.

And, as I stumbled out of the lab and approached the desk at what was now shift-change, there were literally no words that came out of my mouth.

Athough I was apparently completely red.

The Reference Queen - yes we have a queen and the king is so-named "infoman" - says she's never seen me that speechless.

And continued to tease me for the rest of the day.

As did the Queen of the Known Universe, asking if I'd learned anything new.

Oh my god.

Seriously.

Just, there are no words.

So, we're just gonna move on and ignore the tears currently rolling down my face from laughter at this whole thing.

See, it's funny now. But at the time, I just. Oh my god. Worse than being yelled at by angry patrons. See, with them, I can walk it off and go back and do my job knowing that the percentage of the next person in line being more bitchy than the bitch before them is very low.

But see, now I'm like scarred for life from the lab and helping people download files. Cause. Just. No. I don't. There's not. I can't. Just no. No.

Of all the people that I could have been helping it had to be a older lady. and then AND THEN, the kid across the aisle jumps up and asks "are you having computer problems? cause I'm a computer student." I literally jumped up from my knees and yelled, "no! no, we're good. thanks." Because as fun as it would be for that to get announced in a crowded enclosed space, it would just make this nightmare worse.

So yeah, that was my day. I mean, it was good up until then. Slept in, had a good lunch, made plans for Friday, got to work with some of my favorite people, but yeah. That's what's burned into my brain from this day.

And, maybe, showing you some of these will make that one go away. Oh my god.

Alright, continuing the "one year" theme, here's some pics from across the year.

I'll start with ones you haven't seen.


My Life in Closed Captions: Our drinking team has a golfing problem I think this was around hole number eight. Or maybe it was more like five. Either way, it was a day of awesomeness.



My Life in Closed Captions: This is a week of my favorite things Day Three: Te... White walls and sterylized equipment. Yeah. I think we got it.


My Life in Closed Captions: 2G's version of Oh Lord of Light The finalized verses of our version.


I have no explanation for this, I just think it's the best plant ever. Something even I couldn't kill.


My Life in Closed Captions: And no one's getting fat except mama cass. Taking a break from post-camp processing.


Carter likes to sleep on my stomach. All the time.


It's the Death Star of Awesomeness. Star Wars going away party at work.


He likes to pounce on the door. So I put up an obstacle. And he freaking climbed the obstacle and was still able to pounce on the door.


My Life in Closed Captions: I've never heard silence quite this loud. And *pbbt* you was gone.


My Life in Closed Captions: Camp J 2011 Highlights JANSEN!


Plus some you have seen:

My Life in Closed Captions: Well I ain't first class, but I ain't white trash.... Spawn of Awesome

My Life in Closed Captions: To dye, or not to dye? That is the question. Receipt Printers Gone Wild

alright, tomorrow is clips and quotes and probably some other random stuff as well.